Panaji : GMC doc leaves gauze inside patient’s stomach

A Goa medical college (GMC) and hospital doctor negligently left a gauze in a man’s stomach during an operation, which led the patient to experience unbearable pain post-surgery.TNN | August 23, 2015, 01:27 IST

PANAJI: A Goa medical college (GMC) and hospital doctor negligently left a gauze in a man’s stomach during an operation, which led the patient to experience unbearable pain post-surgery.

Agasaim police said that the labourer, Palavalasa Mohana Rao, a resident of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, was operated at the GMC on April 2, 2013. Police inspector Jivba Dalvi told STOI that after the surgery, Rao continuously took medicine to get relief from stomach pain. He got himself admitted at a hospital in Vishakapatnam, where the doctor made him take an X-ray test. It showed that Rao had a medical gauze in his stomach.

“Rao was operated at the hospital at Vishakapatnam and the gauze was removed from his stomach,” Dalvi said. Agasaim police have registered a case against an unidentified doctor under Section 338 of the Indian Penal Code (causing grievous hurt by endangering life) for operating a patient in a negligent manner.

The case was initally registered at Gopalapatnam police station in Andhra Pradesh and was transferred to Agasaim police station on the point of jurisdiction. The case is being investigated, police said.

Subscribe ETHealthworld Newsletter

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao passed the order while acting on a PIL filed by Delhi-based dermatologist Zaheer Ahmed who complained that lakhs of medicines were being sold on the internet every day without much regulation, posing a huge risk to patients and doctors alike.